Door County food truck set to open first restaurant

Sue Grossardt

Contributor

December 29, 2025

JACKSONPORT – After seven successful years on the road, Wally’s Weenie Wagon is hitting a new milestone – opening a storefront at 6313 State Highway 57 this spring. 

Wally and Traci Vartanian, the husband-and-wife team behind the wagon, said they are excited to take their growing business to the next level – an enthusiasm rooted in a long family tradition of entrepreneurship.

“My grandfather actually started the flooring business in the Chicagoland area back in 1950,” Wally said. “Then my father got into the business along with his brother. I, too, began working in the business – it was actually one of my first jobs growing up.”

After college, Wally said he wanted to pursue other opportunities but ultimately ended up back in the family business.

“At a later point in time, I got back into the business with my father,” he said.

Originally based in Palatine, Illinois, Wally said they saw a unique set of opportunities that allowed them to move the business to Door County. 

Working alongside his dad for another 10 years, Wally said, sparked the humor that would shape the business idea, eventually leading to the creation of Wally’s Weenie Wagon.

“The whole business started as a family joke,” he said. “My grandfather’s name is Wally, my dad’s name is Wally and I’m Wally, too.”

Wally said his dad always joked that when he retired, he wanted to run a small hot dog business from a push cart – not necessarily to get into the hot dog business, but because he thought it would be hilarious to have a business named after himself.

“We would be asking him, ‘When are you going to start Wally’s Weenie Wagon? When are you going to start doing that?’” he said.

During the slow days at the shop, Wally said they found themselves talking more about the hot dog push cart business.
“I would say to my dad, ‘I know it’s a joke, but you can’t get a good Chicago-style hot dog up here in Door County. You can’t get a good Italian beef sandwich. You can’t get a good gyro right off the spit here in Door County,’” he said.

Wally said he often jokes with customers that the whole business idea was a bit selfish – starting it mainly to feed himself.

“But all joking aside, over the course of the years of having the rug shop, we started doing some research on the restaurant industry,” he said.

Tucked behind the flooring estimates and rug measurements in the shop’s file system, Wally said, was a folder labeled “restaurant file.”

“As we continued to do research over the course of the years, that file grew and grew, until we finally decided to shut down the family flooring business, and [said] ‘let’s actually do this,’” he said.

Wally said the career shift came shortly before his father turned 80.

“My father reminded me of one thing,” Wally said. “He said, ‘You realize you’re going to have to do all of the work. I’ll be your quality control, but I’m going to turn 80 this year, so you’re going to have to do all the work.’”

Unfortunately, Wally said his father passed away that same year, but he and Traci decided to move forward with the business and take on the new venture.

Out of all the locations in Door County, Traci said Baileys Harbor was the obvious choice to launch the business.

“Baileys Harbor was the most welcoming of all the villages,” she said. “We were told that the Door County area, in general, was not food truck-friendly. In our early stages, it was very difficult to get in somewhere. We had to fight just to exist up here. But that wasn’t the case in Baileys Harbor. We know the owner of Cornerstone Pub, who advised us to come to him as soon as we were ready to open.”

Wally said Paul Salm, owner of Cornerstone Pub, has been incredibly supportive – going as far as offering up his property as a home base for the food truck.

“He sees [our food truck] as another draw and not competition – [considering us] as an added value to Baileys Harbor,” he said.

For the past seven years, Wally said the food truck – which is supported by a dedicated team of eight – has been stationed in Baileys Harbor, right next to Cornerstone Pub.

On the weekends and during the offseason, he said it can also be found at Lake Fire Winery, operating Thursdays through Sundays.

Wally’s Weenie Wagon offers small plates of popular items – such as gyros, German hot dogs and the newly created Greek-Cuterie Board, which includes warm pita, house-made hummus, gyro meat, olives, cucumber and a yogurt-based tzatziki sauce.

Wally said one of the perks of the business is having daily access to gyros straight off the spit. 

“We are not a fancy kind of a place – there’s a lot of joking around,” he said. “There is a lot of banter with our customers who are more like extended family to us.”

Looking ahead to the new year, Wally said the focus for Wally’s Weenie Wagon is preparing for the opening of its first brick-and-mortar location – an exciting next step in the business’s journey.

Growing opportunities

Traci said there were many discussions about how they would expand Wally’s Weenie Wagon over the years.

“We knew our next step to grow was in the direction of either a larger food truck or opening a brick-and-mortar location,” she said. “We have been looking at opening the right location up here [in Door County] for about three years now – however, nothing has been affordable. We had just decided to grow our business with a larger food truck [and forgo opening up a restaurant].”

However, Traci said, timing proved to be pivotal. 

“This [property] happened to come up on the market two days before we were actually meeting with the bank, along with the Door County Economic Development Corporation (DCEDC) to talk about expanding to a larger food truck,” she said. “The listing price was reasonable, and we figured, let’s go look at it.”

Wally said they asked themselves, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“We ended up pitching both of the ideas,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of the meeting was about getting the loan for a larger food truck. The other building was kind of an afterthought. I [didn’t even] bring up the possibility of expanding to a restaurant [until] the very end of the meeting… I kind of expected to get laughed out of the meeting, but we were not.”

Traci said the discussion turned out to be a win for both sides.

“If you think about it, it makes sense,” she said. “It is a safer investment for the bank [to finance] a brick-and-mortar location, because if it does fail, then they have real estate to work with versus a food truck, which they could only use as a depreciating asset.”

Despite considering a name change as they transitioned from a food truck to a restaurant, Wally and Traci said they ultimately decided to keep the well-known name. 

“We decided we’re going to keep the same name, the same logo, which is actually a caricature of his father, except we will now be ‘Wally’s Weenie Wagon, The Restaurant,’” Traci said. 

Though the food truck will remain part of the business, Traci said its focus will shift with the opening of the restaurant.

“We are going to shift the truck’s focus into a new business called Spice and Scoop, featuring nachos along with hard-scooped ice cream,” she said. “The hard-scooped ice cream will be the only one of its kind in the area. We had to get a few different pieces of equipment for the truck.”

Traci said they plan to keep things simple and streamline that side of the business, maintaining their spot next to Cornerstone Pub.

Ebbs and flows

Wally said properly staffing the business in a place like Door County could present challenges.

“There are never enough employees, especially in the Door County area,” he said. “Traci and I initially thought, if we did the food truck, that will be great, because we won’t ever need employees. The two of us can handle it all. However, this past season, we have grown to eight employees. It was a couple of years back that we realized this is taking on a life of its own, and we could not keep up.”

Wally said they’ve been able to manage the growing demand by hiring a full-time lead cook, with the rest of the staff working part-time.

“Almost all of our employees from last season, if they’re still going to be in the Door County area, want to come back to work,” he said. 

In addition to staffing challenges, Wally said the rising cost of food is another ongoing hurdle they face.

“Food costs are continuing to go up,” he said. “While we’ve tried to keep our overhead as low as possible, we always try to absorb whatever price increases we can, until we know we cannot.”

Wally said they’ve built a strong reputation, becoming known as one of the more affordable dining options in Door County.

“Our portions are very generous,” he said. “It’s the running joke we have with our customers when they order and ask, ‘is something shareable?’ I remind them that we lack any sense of portion control. Customers get a lot of food [in each entrée], and we always want to give them more versus less.”

Seeing the line of customers form each day is exciting, but Traci said there are other aspects of owning a business that make the experience even more rewarding.

“I think [knowing the business] is yours, brings us both great joy,” she said. “We each have a good work ethic – we get that from our parents. We’ve always worked hard, and now we work hard for ourselves. We know we’re going to get out of it what we put into it.”

Traci said this work is unlike any job they’ve had before, where they may not have always felt appreciated.

“Now we do [feel appreciated] – our customers are great,” she said. “We have a lot of fun, even on those hot and sweaty 90-degree days. We enjoy going to work… We really get to control our own destiny.”

For updates on Wally’s Weenie Wagon, The Restaurant opening, head to its Facebook page.